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Contents:

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………. 9

Critical Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………….. 11

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………... 11

References……………………………………………………………………………………… 12

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Introduction:

Social media is the mean of social interaction through different techniques and ways. It is the

best way of communication between people because everyone has the right and freedom to speak

and share anything. Social media includes face book, twitter, my space etc. In simple words it

can be said as the network of social sites where people can share their views or anything they

want to. Social media includes social networking websites, blogs, video and photo sharing sites

like you tube and flicker, user reviews for instance Amazon.com and many more such websites.

It creates an environment in which everyone can contribute in the communication it is the best

way of exchanging information among people. It creates a virtual framework which enables the

people to setup a forum or platform to share information of common interest. . It is available for

the whole public and not restricted to few people. It is accessible by the whole public and targets

the interest of whole world i.e. every field is touched. It’s a decentralized platform and multi

topics are discussed in it. There is even no hierarchy in it. It’s not like the industrial media in

which once information has been broad casted cannot be changed. In social media any

information can be changed and altered at any time and by anyone with even little knowledge.

As anyone can edit this information so it’s not that much authenticated and reliable information

as you can get from some industrial media.

Social media can be seen as a good source of teaching and learning as well. Exchange of

information is like absorbing and releasing information. It is also good for companies to talk to

people through social media to keep in touch with them and know their views to run their

business in a more good way. Social media is helpful and useful in many ways like you can get

vast information on a single topic through different people, views of people about any topic, talk

or debate on any current issue. It generates the interest and knowledge of people about various

things. Some people consider social media as a part of their daily life. They take it so beneficial

for them whilst some people take or use social media for bad and negative works like

propaganda about something or talk about the nasty things. Well it depends on every individual

that for what purpose it uses the social media. But no doubt its positive aspects and uses. Social

media can be used as a good source of interacting material and exchanging information about

different stuff.

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After a brief introduction on social media it is now very important to know and answer the

question that why social media is need to use for teaching and learning? The answer of this

question is very vast because the social media is becoming very popular at this time. It provides

an entirely new layout for teaching and learning.

There are a number of websites, blogs and pages which are connecting people socially. So it is a

very effective medium for teaching and learning these days and it is also becoming popular for

this purpose.

There are more than 69% of people who use social networking web sites. So if they use these

sites for the purpose of teaching and or for learning then is very good. It is also very effective

way to teach students of age between six to ten years. Because it has many advantages that are

they can learn their work, they can also learn how to use these social media in an effective way.

The social media is also needed because from it you can easily interview students for online

scholarships. These sites can also give students effective learning related jobs like you can write

online articles and post your blogs on this site and get money.

Old-style school, college or university classes are now moving towards a new aspect which is

known as social media which is very help full in teaching and learning. Web sites such as

Facebook twitter etc. are considered to be the best and useful social media for teaching and

learning. These websites are connecting students and teachers to study and learn in an exciting

way.

There are a number of different methods to make your class room a social media class room. The

best way to teach students literature is to involve students in some kind of literature activity like

you can give students to make a page or blog of their favorite literature author on any social

media site. It is also advisable for students to follow any known personality as well as their

teachers on social media website. The social networking web sites like Skype can be used to

connect two class rooms no problem where they are situated in the world.

Students can use the social media site to help them in many ways as they can learn whatever they

want to anywhere sitting in the world. You can attend lectures on these web sites. You can also

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attend online tutorials on any desired topics you want to. You can also take help from people

using these sites for your projects or assignments or even on your thesis topic. You can even

learn any foreign language by using social media sites which is actually very easy because you

can add any foreign person on Facebook or twitter and ask him to teach you his native language.

All you have to do is to make an effort to learn.

For a teacher it doesn’t matter you teach a on which level it is very simple to make use of social

media for you class room. Like it is a duty of a teacher if he or she answer every question of his

her student at any time so it is good that by using social media site they always remain available

for answering their students. Post your lectures and all additional notes for your students on

Facebook Skype or twitter for those students who missed the class.

There is an excellent web site available which is specially designed for social media to use as a

class room the name of this web site is Social Media Class room. This site has social media tools

to support teaching and learning. The web site was established by Howard Rheingold, a well-

known writer and critic “on the cultural, social and political implications of modern

communication media.” His inspiring book, The Virtual Community (1993), was on his

experience on the WELL, was published well before modern technologies like Facebook,

MySpace, or the Web itself had anyone else talking about online communities and positioned

him as a leading expert in the emerging space.

Social media is facing great problems now days as it is not owned by few people any one can

contribute into it and that are why the profits and revenues of the participants are decreasing day

by day. People are contributing in this area a lot and creating problems for the people who have

their earnings associated with them. Secondly it cuts the margin profit of the people because

people take no minutes to copy and paste other’s views in their terms and increase their work

material on the work and effort of others. It at the same time creates another problem that is

transfer and propagation of false or incorrect information. People with little or false data add up

their information in such media and it is easily then accepted by most of the people who have

almost no knowledge. It even decreases the standard of the knowledge. Cultural aspects also

cause the problems

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Because as in social media people from different countries and areas participate so everyone has

different views and approach so it sometimes causes problems and to handle that is also a

challenge.

As social media is a good source of teaching and learning but at the same time it can be used for

bad purposes such as people talk about the nasty stuff or propagate the false information. So to

pass correct information and search for the truth is a great challenge for the social media.

The other problem that social media is facing is the work load management of sites. Like

millions of people are using face book, twitter etc so to manage all those people profiles and their

activities is a great challenge. To provide storage capacity for their social stuff like pictures and

videos etc. and good internet speed is the biggest challenge and their need is increasing day by

day so to meet their customers’ demands they need to work a lot. As technology is getting better

day by day so to update their performance and to compete with their rivals is a big problem to

confront for the social media. Every site needs to be enhanced and upgrade its functions so to

earn the maximum returns. For instance if you upload such a thing on you tube which gets

maximum hit by the users that would generate maximum earning. So to upload a different and

unique thing social media has to really work hard. To compete with the competitors is the main

agenda of social media. In short social media has diversified problems and to tackle all that is the

necessity of their work and is a challenge as well.

Today many people believe that social media or technology is proved beneficial for the teaching

and learning. According to some teachers students can learn a lot of things in a short time and

can solve their key problems using social media, this social media can be in the form of

Facebook and twitter. Obviously these forums have the both best and worst consequences on

youth. But some people think that all mediums of social media like Facebook, twitter have only

horrible impact on youth and these sites waste their time, potential of doing something, destroy

their individuality and personality and also through this medium they can involve in some sort of

dangerous plans. That’s why mostly people wanted to keep away their children from this

environment.

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The most disquieting phase of social media is Over-sharing. Over sharing are very sticky

situations that can cause too much confusion. Students should have to follow the teaching to

overcome the problem of over sharing. There are some ways which can help in avoiding these

problems.

Over sharing can be developed by using a program that is called four square. Mostly students

install this program on their mobile phones. Through this program students are connected with

all of their friends and updated them about their routines. Many of the students have friends

about 700-1000 and a very sure thing is that, they actually know all their friends and this thing

cause an enormous potential for risk. Someone can access your personal information and use for

the wrong purposes like, many girls uploaded their pictures on Facebook so any one can get her

pictures and misuse them. There are also many people who post their personal messages on

Facebook that is not a good thing. The purpose of all this discussion is that there is no necessitate

of having a lot of friends. You should have to connect only your close friends.

There are many harmful effects of over sharing that anyone can bullying you by threatening on

the basis of your personal information that you share on your wall on Facebook. One way to

avoid this problem is that students should not share their personal information with every one

The major thought at the back of teaching social media literacy is to protect students and make

wider their awareness foundation of technology. There are many youngsters who believe on the

fact that this is not necessary that if we have opportunity of social media then we must have to

use it. At this time when whole world is working from the peak of progress it is very

unbelievable that someone do not use his/her opportunities for the progress of his/her self but

also for their country. As a accountable educators, all teachers should have to learn their

students that where they are lying and teach what they are more require and now at this time,

social media literacy is really lacking.

There are many forms of social media like blogging, forums, wikis, twitter, media sharing, social

bookmarking and social networks. Blogging is a platform where everyone can share their

learning’s and experiences in a very nice way. This is a very easy way of getting any information

online. Forums are another display place where people not only can read their required

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information but also can talk to other people about their queries. When people talk with each

other they can enhance their leaning activities.

Wiki is very structured website where we have too many information related to everything which

can use people over time. Many people contributing in this website and uploads the information

about things and they even correct or update that information with the passage of time. We can

also access on this website the online dictionaries.

Sometimes people protect their training sessions by recording a video that they can watch or

listen after some time again. So they can also share these videos with other people using media

sharing. Social bookmarking is a way in which people share some important links, at which they

get some interesting and important knowledge with others. This is a very useful fast method.

Social network is a really very helpful technique of uniting too much the activity over with a vast

manner of advance sharing people’s knowledge, aptitude and wellbeing, as we can see on

Facebook and some other platforms.

There are any obstacles in using the social media like we do not have computers in language lab,

and this is not possible that language teachers have computers any time at any place which

reduces the chances of learning. There are also many students who still do not have the

opportunity of internet at their homes so this not possible that those students are given the some

work that is related to the social media. There are also too many students who do not have any

interest and also the lack of motivation in learning something new, it does not affect them that

what techniques are used by their teachers.

Instead of all these problems teachers should try to teach their student’s lessons related to social

media in their classes. Simply because at this period of time that is in 21st century students

require the knowledge according to the inventions of the 21st century. The first thing that is

required is that the first of all teachers should show the good example of using the social media

.Teachers should properly teach their students that how they can use the social media for

important purposes instead of only using for games or chatting.

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The research shows that the social media is a very effective in teaching and learning activities.

Through this technology the learning content is easily accessible for every one without a minute

delay at any time. Social media propos a wide-ranging variability of useful tools which discourse

diverse networks and indulge students more enthusiastically in building their own education

procedure, letting more active education plans to be applied.

Though the media passion in excess of Facebook, MySpace Skype twitter and the similar has

rigorous on the distractions they over and over again cause in the education atmosphere, there is

a movement in education that looks to influence the impending of social interacting for

educational purposes.

These social media sites turned in to a fundamental site which students can use for educational

purposes. They can use these sites to give them an effective way for learning or they can use

them for commenting negatively on the educational criteria of there institute. In many of the

institutes these web sites are banned because the administration thinks that most of the students

use this site for negative purposes which are to some extent true.

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Literature Review:

“Social media” means a media for interaction of society, by using extremely reachable and communication

and contacts techniques. Social media means to use web-based or mobile technologies to revolve contact into

attractive discussion. Greater part of people is visiting and using “social media” sites just like Face book and

Twitter and You Tube, in receipt of your product name throughout network may assist allow people to be

familiar with your surroundings. In case you have up to create an online image of your company then you can

use networks given to do this. Internet is a much faster way. You can create funny videos for you tube and on

face book or twitter you can entertain your customers who will want to visit you’re your brand. To create

attention of people it is good way to create featuring of product on social media.

It is a truth that there are a group of people facilitating with social media for commerce and individual reasons

on every day basis. And even those people who are using it only for private reasons sometimes it facilitate

them on business level as well before the time when social media did not discover how much the level of

difficulty for them on a number of tasks that have made very easy just because of this faster media.

We can say that by using this media we have been entered into a new world. Now a task of a year has

happened to be done within a month and task of month in a week, just like it a task of a day is appeared to be

happened in few seconds….

Along with the advantages of “social media” there are many disadvantages of this media like it has influence

or bad impact on workers’ productivity who wastes there time on using this media instead of concentrating on

their own tasks an responsibilities. And it is the very common case that that people gat easily addicted on

internet that creates a big disadvantage and poor impact on children especially.

Due to social media all relations and friendships usually resolves on internet and on other ways this creates a

long distance between the close relations. We mostly conclude our relations on internet that we are friends but

in fact that is not exactly rather we sometimes lost the original friendships on our own.

And if we talk about on business level then it creates sometimes ambiguities and illusions among the

contractors about basic business issues.

So we conclude our discussion on the basis of its advantages and disadvantages that we should utilize this

amazing facility to fulfill our requirements but to get an eye that it should not able to distract anything.

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There are many people who analyzed these social networking sites critically in order to assure whether they

are supportive in teaching and learning.

Said by Drmonica Associate Editor, Debater, Expert, and Educator “I’m not convinced that

Twitter and Facebook are useful tools for the classroom. However, I have experience using

online discussion boards and email in the teaching of English with high school students. I found

that many students who don’t like to speak up in class will write lengthy, thoughtful responses to

online discussion prompts. Another benefit of using online discussion boards is that the

asynchronous nature of these tools allows students to read a prompt then let it “percolate” in their

heads before responding. This type of wait time is not possible in a real-time environment. The

“track changes” function and “comment” capability in Word has really revolutionized writing.

For students who are unable to meet in person for a conference on a paper, online exchange of

materials allows them to obtain teacher feedback and input during the writing process.”

Said by a Teacher of High School - 12th Grade Assistant Editor “I have been teaching online for

some time now. The students I teach are mostly disable and confined to home or have a need to

further their education and can't attend traditional classes. I use many tools to assist in the

delivery of lessons and instructions.”

Acquisti, Alessandro, and Gross, Ralph. (2006). Facebook. In Golle, P. and Danezis, G. (Eds.),

Proceedings of 6th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. (pp. 36--58).Cambridge,

U.K. Robinson College. June 28-30. (Conference paper)

“The Facebook is a social network catered to College and High School communities. Among

online social networks, FB stands out for two reasons: its success, both in terms of membership

and quality of information available on it; and the fact that, unlike other networks catered to

young users, the information is uniquely and personally identified. Accordingly, FB is of interest

to researchers in two respects: 1) as a 9-million and counting users phenomenon in itself - the

behavior of its users, the gains as well as the risks they face; 2) as a quite unique experiment in

information revelation, a source of highly valuable information about privacy attitude and

privacy behavior among young individuals.”

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A Critical Evaluation:

I have observed that many students use YouTube Facebook and Skype to take online tutorials

any subject they want to because these social media sites contain many content on all subjects.

Like an MBA student can take online tutorials on YouTube on finance accounting management

etc. a student of English literature can join the page of his or her favorite author on Facebook and

can study all the books written by that author an also can read the reviews of books of that

author.

Teachers also employee these social media sites to help them in teaching and to make the

teaching environment helpful for teachers and as well as for students like mentioned above that

many teachers are using social media in class rooms to make learning more effective for

students. I have also observed that teachers in order to make a good and effective lecture they

show visual adds from these social media networking sites.

Conclusion:

On the basis of the discussion I conclude that these social media sites are supportive in learning

and teaching because they provide the students and teachers with all the important content

regarding their field. The students also have the facility to revisit the lectures at any time they

want to. These emerging technologies are clearly moving us in the education community closer

toward Tim Berner-Lee’s ideal of using the Web as “an information space through which people

can communicate, by sharing their knowledge in a pool.” In this world of 21st century where web

based activities is gaining popularity they are the base of seeking knowledge on everything in

this world. However it is the duty of teachers that to design any course not for the sake of

teaching the students but for the sake of use of social media technology for learning purposes.

Above all discussion social media is a very effective tool for teaching and learning.

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References:

o Retrieved at: May 29, 2011. Social Networking and influence on teaching and

learning.http://www.enotes.com/technology-in-the-classroom/discuss/social-networking-

influence-teaching-learning-66469

o Retrieved at: May 29, 2011. Featherstone (2009). Face book a character!!!

http://mrfeatherstone.blogspot.com/2009/04/unit-project-facebook-character.html

o Howard Rheingold. (1993). the Virtual Community. University of California, USA. Pp. 3, 9, 17,

23, 207

o Retrieved at: May 28, 2011. Dean (2011). Social Media Classroom.

http://ngtl.ischool.berkeley.edu/node/25

o Retrieved at: May 28, 2011. 100 inspiring ways to use social media in classrooms.

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/05/100-inspiring-ways-to-use-social-media-in-

the-classroom/

o Retrieved at: May28, 2011. Wendy Suto (2011) Top 14 benefits of social media marketing.

http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/02/13/top-14-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/

o Retrieved at: May 28, 2011. Anton Wilson (2010). What are some advantages and

disadvantages of social media networking?

http://www.socialmediastrategy.co.za/index.php/social-networking/what-are-some-advantages-

and-disadvantages-of-social-media-networking/

o Acquisti, Alessandro, and Gross, Ralph. (2006). Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information

Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook.In Golle, P. and Danezis, G. (Eds.), Proceedings of 6th

Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. (pp. 36--58).Cambridge, U.K. Robinson

College.

o Back, M. D., Stopfer, J. M., Vazire, S., Gaddis, S., Schmukle, S. C., Egloff, B., and Gosling, S.

D. (2010). Facebook profiles reflect actual personality, not self-idealization.. Psychological

Science, pp 21, 372-374.